Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1887-04-21
WASHINGTON LETTER.
From our regular correspondent

WASHINGTON, April 1lth, 1887.
During the Democratic Administra.
ton many of the musty regulations
with which. Republican official life had
hedged itself i'm have been overhauIed,
and where there was no good reason fol
their existence, and have discontinued.
They have not all been relegated to the
past however. The rule which closes
the Government Department buildings
to visitors at two o'clock is still in force,
much to the Inconvenience ofstrangers.
1t is a serious disappointment to
visitors here only for a few days, and
trying to get as much sightseeing as
possible into that time, to be shut out
at so early an hour from so many places
of interest. They feel, and have a right
to feel that in apeople's Government the
peoples convenience ought to be con-
sidered a little, and that they should be
given what pleasure they can get from
the corridors, elevators, museums and
curiosity rooms of the building as long
as they are open for business.
Speaking of sightseeing in the De-
partments, often think how monOton-
Gus must be the duties of those officials
who are delegated to exhibit the objects
of interest to visitors. But they show
wonderful freshness about the man who
exhibits the rogues' gallery, or the piles
of counterfeit money, or the secret SER
vice room, and only person who has
party of friends to escort there about
once a year can realize how many times
he has told the same things over, always
with an unfailing brightness of express
inN oV6 nnoinfnocc nf hnVNNnr
Senator Cockrell's investigating COM
mittee (the Senate Select Committee
which is now probing the methods of
work in the different Executive De-
partments of the GOvernment) has un-
dertaken a gigantic task, but it will
make an elaborate report of its labors
sometime in the future. The Missouri
Senate is very conscientious, pains
taking man, and he is giving the pub
lie offices much annoyance and no little
uneasiness. He wants to know (you
know and the number of things the
public don't know and that Senator
Cockrell will have great deal of trou-
BILE in finding out, is astonishing.
The complaint is often made now
that there is too much "red tape" and
that the employees of the Government
have very few hours to work, and very
little work within those hours as COM
pared with persons employed in similar
by private business concerns.
But such annoying features are in
connected with the theory of
work. 1t must be put
by processes as nearly mechani-
cal as possible, so that the death or re-
moval of clerk may not throw an en-
tire office out of gear, and so that the
dishonesty of any one employe will be
discovered when the work on which he
practised it is turned over to another for
the next stage of its progress.
All this involves the reduction of
business to infinite detail and it's distri-
button among a multitude of people.
If Senator Cockrell and his committee
can find way of simplifying the pro-
cesses their discovery will be warmly
welcomed. The results of their labor
cannot fail to be of value and will GER
tainly be of interest, abounding in in
which, to the general public,
is now in the nature of q sealed book.
The committee is not expected to pass
judgment upon the civil service law,
but accidentally the operations of the
law will come under the purview ofthe
and the latter will be ex-
pected to answer such questions
as the following. Is the Government
any better served-the public busi-
;iness more rapidly expedited, the
morals of the methods of the sew
eral Departments in any respect the
that what is called the
"spoils system" has been done away
with? Es
1t is matter of no small importance.
The people are told that the civil SER
vice law, in its classified application, is
wonders of reform, but they
have only heresay evidence to that eff
feet. They are assured that it is doing
away with a great deal of favoritism,
the appointing power of much |
embarrassment, purifying the channels
of patronage, and elevating the standard |
Of clerical merit. They are interested |
N knowing whether civil service re-
form is really all that its friends claim,
lr whether it is sham and humbug
Is its enemies insist. Senator Cockrell's |
with good an opportunity |
could find out all about it.